Tea & Books by the Lake
I attended a couple of events this past weekend at the Leacock Summer Festival in Orillia ON, touted as “Ontario’s Largest Summer Literary Get-Together”. The Festival is a six-day event celebrating Canadian authors, poets, readers and musicians, held at the Stephen Leacock Museum, Leacock’s former summer home. One of the nice things about the event is that the grounds are gorgeous, filled with flowers and wooded trails, on a nice quiet section of Lake Couchiching – the ideal setting for a summer literary festival. Lucky for me, it is a located a short 35 minute drive from where I now live in Barrie. Somewhat sadly however, this annual event has been going on for some time now and I, born and raised in Orillia, just discovered it this year. Such a shame to think of what I have been missing out on all of this time, right at my own front door! Bad local.
I discovered the Festival while browsing the “appearances” section of Kelley Armstrong’s newly redesigned web site. Having just reviewed Kelley’s latest title in her Otherworld series, Waking the Witch, for Paranormal Bites I was excited to see that I could attend a reading by Kelley in just a few short days and ask her to sign the advanced reader copy of WtW that I am giving away to one lucky reader. I did a little research and was happy to discover that the Festival was also offering a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party that I could take my daughter to as well. My girl and I thoroughly enjoyed the Tea Party on Friday, especially the scavenger hunt that lead us to really explore the museum grounds. We also took the time to explore Leacock’s home-turned-museum and I was delighted to find that my daughter shares my love of antiques and all things old. We browsed in the gift shop, bought a few treasures and Danni made me promise that we could return to ‘Stephen’s house’ again in the future. We completed our adventure in down town Orillia by strolling through the Leacock Days sidewalk sales, browsing in antique and nature stores and enjoying a snow cone. Talk about a perfect summer day!
I returned to ‘Stephen’s house’ on Saturday morning and sat under the large white tent by the lake listening to authors Tish Cohen, Lesley Livingston, and Kelley Armstrong discuss their YA series novels and read excerpts from some of their books. The readings were followed by an informal Q&A session and autograph signing. I picked up books by all three authors and was delighted to discover that Tish Cohen writes for children as well as YA and adult novels, meaning that I picked up another title for Danni’s ever-growing library – you know how it is, like mother – like daughter.
All in all it was a wonderfully relaxed event, in an ideal setting, and all three authors were very gracious and entertaining. Lesley in particular was a joy to listen to as she read as her theatre training (she’s also an actress) really comes across as she reads dialogue. And yes, Kelley did sign the a.r.c. of WtW for the contest, as well as donated some swag that will be given away in September during Blogmania.
July 27th, 2010 at 1:24 am
Tags: Blogmania, contests, giveaways, Kelley Armstrong, Leacock Summer Festival, Leacock Summer Festival 2010, Lesley Livingston, Tish Cohen, Waking the Witch